illegal gambling (numbers,...) "run by the bad guys" is more lucrative than state-sponsored gambling "run by the good guys".After 101, you’ll never play the lottery again...
Has anyone overcome a gambling addiction for pool?
- Thread starter justnum
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Like you Hu, I was pretty cut throat after I got a game, with my only goal to win as much as possible from the other guy. I had a couple of similar experiences to what you relate here. There was a road man who used to come through Bakersfield maybe once or twice a year and he always stopped at my poolroom to play me. We would usually play $20 One Pocket and someone might win $100. One time I got his nose open and he went off for his entire bankroll, maybe a thousand bucks, and then I won his cue and his Caddy! He looked like a broken man when it was all over. I felt so bad I gave him back the title and keys to his car, and his cue. I think I gave him $100 walking money as well.
One other guy came in looking for a game, a pretty young kid, maybe 20 years old. We played $10 9-Ball and I won all his money too, maybe eighty bucks. Near the end of the game his wife came in holding their little baby daughter. She was crying and said now they had no money for food. I gave him back all his money! Later on someone told me that was a con they used if he should lose. I told them that was okay, my conscience is clear.
Thanks for the laugh Joey!
Living in Vegas long as I did I saw plenty of problem gamblers. People who play machines until they are homeless from being millionaires(my ex girl-not Kelly).
Problem gambling is a spectrum. Where you land on that spectrum can be based on what you gamble on and if you can stop or are forced to stop by being broke or outside forces. It’s a horrible disease. I’ve seen it rip apart families many many times. New comers to Vegas looking for the American dream only to discover gambling in casinos and losing it all.
speaking for myself. If it’s worth doing it’s worth doing for money. I love to gamble on certain things-slot machines put me to sleep. Pool action is great, rail bets are fun. I’ve lost everything in my pockets and then some a few times. But I’ve never lost the rent $. I can stop anytime I want. I’m not compulsive, it has never controlled me. Maybe I spent too much time gambling and pissed of others-that’s selfish. I never compromised my bankroll.
Tails, if anyone wants to flip!!!
Problem gambling is a spectrum. Where you land on that spectrum can be based on what you gamble on and if you can stop or are forced to stop by being broke or outside forces. It’s a horrible disease. I’ve seen it rip apart families many many times. New comers to Vegas looking for the American dream only to discover gambling in casinos and losing it all.
speaking for myself. If it’s worth doing it’s worth doing for money. I love to gamble on certain things-slot machines put me to sleep. Pool action is great, rail bets are fun. I’ve lost everything in my pockets and then some a few times. But I’ve never lost the rent $. I can stop anytime I want. I’m not compulsive, it has never controlled me. Maybe I spent too much time gambling and pissed of others-that’s selfish. I never compromised my bankroll.
Tails, if anyone wants to flip!!!
Why would you want to?
If you purposefully match up so you always win, then you arent gambing either...
Yep, pretty much the same story. A clean cut young fellow came into the bar that was my first and last stop of the night and wanted to play some pool, I think I was already hitting some on a table. It didn't take us long to get to twenty a game, not bad on the barbox at the time. Didn't take long to see he didn't have what he needed to win. He knew he was outclassed but couldn't quit. When he was broke and headed for the door I walked with him, I had started nurturing good clients by this time. As we stepped out the door he stopped to light and smoke another cigarette. It was a raw cold evening and there was a very pregnant wife and a baby that didn't look a year old in the car. I knew he was hoping for the walking stick he was too proud to ask for so I walked around to the other side of the car and talked to his wife a bit. "He isn't good enough to make it hustling pool." Best guess I had won about $160 from him. I gave her eighty and told her to tell him I had given her twenty and hang on to the rest for the baby. I doubt she did, but whatever.
It definitely wasn't a con that she and the baby had sat out there in the cold for a couple hours while he lost what little stake they had. The set-up except for that would smack of con, one reason I only gave back half. The other reason was I had put my money on the line and won his, I wasn't big on giving back winnings as a usual thing. Never saw them again so that was the end of the story for me.
Hu
"Recovering from a pool gambling addiction has any done it?"
I have.
But I would remove the word 'pool' from your question.
In my early twenties (early 80s), I bet football with the bookies at the pool hall, played in ring game where I was the fish, and then the Bicycle club opened in southern California and I was broke all the time.
I have some great memories but also a lot of regrets. I just had to realize the need to gamble was a character defect of mine and had to change my life. I also used some of the players in the room as inspiration to quit gambling. There were guys ten years older than me and ten times the talent that were always broke and sleeping in someone's car in the parking lot.
Oh, and one more note, thank for again Mr. Arne Satin (RIP) for the greatest advice of all time. Long story short I had just lost to a certain pro level player in the weekly tournament and was talking to Arne, told him "I need to quit my job and play full time so I could beat that guy someday". He looked at me and said "You want to end up like that guy? What the F*c* is wrong with you?".
I have.
But I would remove the word 'pool' from your question.
In my early twenties (early 80s), I bet football with the bookies at the pool hall, played in ring game where I was the fish, and then the Bicycle club opened in southern California and I was broke all the time.
I have some great memories but also a lot of regrets. I just had to realize the need to gamble was a character defect of mine and had to change my life. I also used some of the players in the room as inspiration to quit gambling. There were guys ten years older than me and ten times the talent that were always broke and sleeping in someone's car in the parking lot.
Oh, and one more note, thank for again Mr. Arne Satin (RIP) for the greatest advice of all time. Long story short I had just lost to a certain pro level player in the weekly tournament and was talking to Arne, told him "I need to quit my job and play full time so I could beat that guy someday". He looked at me and said "You want to end up like that guy? What the F*c* is wrong with you?".
Arnie always had a way with words! He sure managed to piss off Mosconi at the World Straight Pool in Burbank in 1965.
That is a great bit for when that guy comes back and you bet everything you got, and he just barely beats ya.
Cooney did it Weldon did it, man you somehow squeaked out a win and you lost everything last time.
Haha I never heard that story unfortunately. Would love to hear that someday.Arnie always had a way with words! He sure managed to piss off Mosconi at the World Straight Pool in Burbank in 1965.
He sure did have a way with words. He almost ruined Mexican food for me forever. One night we were discussing where to go for dinner:
Arnie: Where do you want to go eat?
Me: Dos Burritos
Arnie: I don't eat Mexican.
Me: Why not?
Arnie: It looks like somebody already ate it.
Gambling in pool is more of an addiction of the ego to chasing dominance over other people. The act of competing one on one is chemically addictive and winning releases chemicals that cause euphoria.
Now I am not talking about hustling which is actually more like working and does not trigger the same chemical activity. The best hustlers are not gamblers, they are con-artists.
Of course some are hustlers and gamblers but I digress.
Pool is one of a small set of activities which can be played and bet on with zero formality in the contest. So it lends itself to satisfying the urge to compete without the formality of joining a club, wearing a uniform, or conforming to any rules other than what you agree on at the time of the game.
It is also an activity that lends itself well to a variety of handicaps making it competitive between disparate skill levels.
Which is all to say that as long as you compete for ego and use money as a proxy for satisfaction you will not quit a pool gambling addiction. When you compete for excellence then the money is just for keeping score.
Now I am not talking about hustling which is actually more like working and does not trigger the same chemical activity. The best hustlers are not gamblers, they are con-artists.
Of course some are hustlers and gamblers but I digress.
Pool is one of a small set of activities which can be played and bet on with zero formality in the contest. So it lends itself to satisfying the urge to compete without the formality of joining a club, wearing a uniform, or conforming to any rules other than what you agree on at the time of the game.
It is also an activity that lends itself well to a variety of handicaps making it competitive between disparate skill levels.
Which is all to say that as long as you compete for ego and use money as a proxy for satisfaction you will not quit a pool gambling addiction. When you compete for excellence then the money is just for keeping score.
If you make it so that you always win you are not gambling. You're just investing with a guaranteed positive return.
In pool that's either hustling or locksmithing but definitely not gambling.
I read this as words of experience gained the hard way....
100%
I looked at wagering on pool in the long term. In the unlikely event I went bust one night it didn't mean anything. About two years into playing pool I realized I was over $10,000 to the good, net. The cushion grew the longer I played. Took the pressure off of having a losing night. Too, I rarely had my total cash on me. I usually had enough to buy a new car salted away at my house as my ready reserve. Not a huge amount of money as three thousand would have bought a pretty nice new car back in that day.
It was funny, I was playing pool in a little bar on a nippy night. As usual, I threw my coat down and was playing in shirt sleeves as soon as I warmed up a little. Nothing else happening and a small rail of eight or ten people were watching the game. A girl got cold and helped herself to my coat. I didn't know her or her date so I was watching closely. If she put her hand in the wrong pocket or headed for the door I was going to have to intervene. When I got my coat back I reached into the snapped tight pocket and pulled out almost three thousand. I had a good week and that coat was my bank at the moment! She was amazed but it was obvious that her date was amazed and disappointed. He would have tried to steal the money if he knew about it!
Hu